One Rough Man pl-1

by Brad Taylor

  “How do you know that? Are you sure?”

  “My dad was a pilot for Delta. He was also a deadbeat sack-of-shit that I haven’t seen since I was seven. After my parents divorced, his idea of quality time was dragging me through here while he worked. I’ve spent plenty of time in that lounge.”

  She had just earned her weight for the entire trip. “Can you find it? How do we get in? What’s the procedure?”

  “I can find it, but that was way, way before 9/11. I have no idea about the procedure now.”

  “You said A Concourse? That’s the next one up. Let’s go.”

  We saw that the escalator was now free of police, and hurried to get to the tunnel below before they returned. The escalator was a long one, about sixty feet down to the ground. Halfway down, a cop sauntered over and positioned himself at the bottom, his back to us. He acted a little bored until he turned around and glanced up. Then he looked like he was going to shit his pants. Damn. Pictures are out.

  62

  The cop pulled his weapon and aimed it up at us while we glided relentlessly toward him. Jennifer was in front of me, preventing any action. He was an older guy, about sixty, and I saw the pistol barrel shake with his adrenaline. He’s liable to shoot out of reflex.

  “Jennifer, raise your hands.”

  We both did, and continued our glide, with him shouting all sorts of commands at us and into a radio. Every time he moved his other hand to key the mike on his shoulder, the gun hand would quake violently. Right handed. He backed up as we reached the end of the escalator, both hands back on his weapon, screaming at us to keep our hands in the air. I slipped in front of Jennifer at the end, attempting to calm him.

  “We’re done. We’re done. Please don’t shoot.”

  Once we were on the ground with him, and seeing our acquiescence, he seemed to grow more confident, saying, “Up against the wall. Now.”

  He barked out orders like an overweight Dirty Harry. I turned to face the wall, making sure that Jennifer was to my left, away from the barrel I was about to move. I waited on him to key his mike, leaving one hand on his weapon. I heard him start talking. Please be strong enough to take this.

  I rotated to my left, pushing his gun hand away from me while grabbing on to the wrist. I drove a light, stunning palm strike into his nose with my right hand, then closed it over my left, controlling the pistol. I rotated the wrist, locking up the joints in his arm like a twisted rubber band. I didn’t move fast enough to destroy his arm but did move with enough speed to force his body to react, literally doing a flip to prevent his arm from being damaged. He hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of him. I felt like shit.

  “Sorry about that.”

  I picked up his weapon, ripped his radio from his belt, and took off in the direction of Concourse A, leaving him gasping for air on the ground. Jennifer stumbled after me.

  “Holy fuck. We are definitely going to jail now.”

  “Yeah, probably so, because if we face another police officer, I’m not doing that again. We give up.”

  I shoved the weapon into the first trash can I could find but kept the radio. I saw Concourse A ahead, and the cops moving around it. Need another way up.

  Luckily, the lack of trains had caused everyone to use the walkway, so the tunnel was starting to swell with people still attempting to go about their daily lives. We intermingled with a group headed toward the concourse, listening to them talk about terrorists on the loose. I saw a handicapped elevator ahead, without any police presence. When we came abreast of it, I stopped and pressed the button, the door opening while the group still flowed around us. As we rode up, the cop’s radio crackled with the news that we were at Concourse B. Perfect. Within seconds we were standing outside of Gate A19, no police in sight, looking at the entrance to the pilots’ lounge. The news wasn’t good. Fuckin’ bin Laden.

  “That figures. Everyone has to swipe their badge before keying in a code.”

  The good news was that the door was down a small hallway, so we wouldn’t be seen doing something unless someone was in the hallway with us. The bad news was that Delta Airlines was serious about security. Nobody entered the door without badging in. Not even when someone already had the door open. Everyone waited, one at a time, to key in their code. Fucking pilots never listen to anybody. Why now?

  “We need a reason for someone to hold open the door. And we need to do it quick, before the police realize we aren’t at Concourse B. They’ll be back in force.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  I watched a purser push an old man down the concourse in a wheelchair, and came up with an idea. It worked on the exercise before Tbilisi. Nobody suspects the disabled.

  “Follow me.”

  I hugged the walls, staying out of the fisheye of the cameras every thirty feet. Getting to a smoking lounge, I found what I was looking for.

  “Get in.”

  “What?”

  “Get in and act like you need this chair.”

  Jennifer scrunched up her eyes, clearly wondering if maybe we weren’t now on the desperate side of things, which we were. She sat down in the wheelchair.

  “I’m going back to the ATM next to Gate 19. I’ll mess around there until someone goes into the hallway. If he’s alone, I’m going to wait until he opens the door, then holler at him to hold it.”

  “This will never work. Delta doesn’t have pilots in wheelchairs.”

  I began pushing. “Yeah, you might be right, but you’d be surprised at the number of times ridiculous shit I’ve pulled out of my ass has worked.”

  “Ahh… no. I don’t think I would. Pulling stuff out of your ass seems to be your way of life.”

  We reached the ATM just as a single pilot began walking down the hallway. I pushed her forward.

  “It’s worked out pretty well so far.”

  63

  “Hey! Hold that door, please. Let me get her through and I’ll badge in.”

  The pilot looked at me, trying to decide, then held it open.

  “Thanks. I appreciate it. Just let me get her inside.”

  I could tell he was wondering why a guy in civilian clothes wanted to take a female in a wheelchair into the pilots’ lounge, but his chivalry took precedence.

  He said, “You sure you’re in the right place? You know there’s no elevator in here, don’t you?”

  I pushed Jennifer through, saying, “Yeah, I know. She can walk short distances. She’ll be okay. We’re just catching the bus.”

  I saw the door close and said, “Give me a hand with her leg braces, will you?”

  He came to the front of the wheelchair, where I was fiddling with the leg platforms. I stood up and grabbed the conveniently thick polyester collar of his uniform and cut off the blood flow to his brain. Once he was down, I ripped off his badge and stuffed him into an empty closet designed to hold the carry-on luggage of pilots coming and going.

  “Okay. What now? Where do we go?”

  Jennifer was stunned, looking at me like I was the Terminator.

  “Come on! Where do we go?”

  She snapped out of it, saying, “Down. There’s a stewardesses’ lounge on the right and a pilots’ lounge on the left. Once we get in there, we need to move straight to the exit. There’s a bus stop underneath the concourse.”

  Two minutes later we were waiting with a bunch of other Delta employees for the shuttle to the Delta parking lot, me wearing the pilot’s badge around my neck with the picture side conveniently against my chest. After the longest three minutes of my life, we were on the next bus headed out of the airport. We sat in the back, away from anyone else, Jennifer still trembling from our narrow miss.

  She said, “I don’t think I’m cut out for this law-breaking stuff. It’s going to give me a nervous breakdown.”

  I said, “Trust me; I didn’t think it was fun either. You get used to it.”

  “What do we do now? Are we still going to D.C., or are we headed to Mexico to find a cheap house to
spend the rest of our lives?”

  “If you’re game, I think we should continue on to D.C. Still want to do that?”

  “Well, shit, we’re outlaws now. It looks like the choices are turn ourselves in, run for the rest of our lives, or try to solve this thing. That’s probably the only way to get any mercy. Maybe cut the jail term to half of our lives.”

  “Okay. I’m game. The folks looking for us know we’re in Atlanta, so we need to do all preparations here, while it won’t give anything away.”

  “What preparations do we need to do? How are we going to get to D.C. with the cops chasing us?”

  “We have to disappear. We can’t use any credit cards, cell phones, anything tied to either you or me. Right now, the police know we’re in Atlanta, so it won’t do any harm to use your ATM or credit cards here. It’ll just reinforce what they already know. Once we leave here, we can’t use anything that will trigger an alert with the authorities. First thing we need to do is go to an ATM and take out your max amount of money. Next, we need to get to a place that sells prepaid credit cards and cell phones. We also need to get a rental car for local use.”

  Something dawned on me. “You don’t have your cell phone with you, do you?”

  “Yes. I turned it back on when we hit the U.S. It works now.”

  “Turn it off and take out the battery.”

  “I haven’t called anyone. Nobody knows it’s on.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Your phone talks without you using it. It constantly sends out a signal to make sure it has a tower it can talk to. This signal leaves a trail, essentially telling anyone who wants to check that your phone talked to such and such tower at such and such time. They can track the city you’re currently in and neck it down to which tower you’re near. Depending on the concentration of towers, it can put you within a couple of city blocks. That’s without using any special gear. Trust me, turn it off and take out the battery.”

  I had intimate knowledge of the power within the U.S. government and knew that any slip-ups would cause us to be caught fairly quickly. Despite all that, the federal government wasn’t omnipotent. Most fugitives were caught by doing something stupid, like returning to the scene of the crime, or going to a family member for help. Smarter fugitives managed to evade the law for extended periods of time, no matter how much effort was put against them.

  A buddy of mine in the FBI had chased a man named Eric Rudolph, a homegrown terrorist who had murdered at least three people and wounded upwards of a hundred because of his twisted beliefs, including the 1996 bombing during the Atlanta summer Olympics. He’d managed to evade the FBI and local police for five years, despite a million-dollar bounty on his head and being on the FBI’s top-ten most wanted list. Great. You’re hoping you’re as good as that sick bastard. Perfect.

  64

  Harold Standish slowly hung up his phone. Disappointed at the failure at the Atlanta airport, he wasn’t overly surprised. Pike and Jennifer were proving to be more resourceful than he would have thought, but knowing Pike’s background now, he should have anticipated it. He quickly punched in Lucas’s private number.

  “It’s Standish. Remember what we talked about yesterday? I need you to execute. Come by the office and I’ll give you the phone you worked on. They’re headed here but I don’t know when they’ll arrive. I’m sure they’ll make contact on the cloned phone.”

  After listening for a few seconds, Standish replied, “I’ll be here. See you then.”

  Before the Atlanta incident, he’d had doubts that using Lucas was the best course of action. He’d contracted Lucas many times before for simple break-ins to gather information on opponents, but he had never asked him to do anything violent. After hearing what had happened in Atlanta, he saw Lucas as the only solution. Let’s see them get away from someone who doesn’t play by the rules.

  * * *

  Seven hours after we had exited the metro at Five Points, we pulled into the Sheraton, in Greensboro, North Carolina — about halfway to Washington, D.C. We had robbed Jennifer’s bank account of about five thousand dollars and converted that to pay-as-you-go credit cards and prepaid cell phones. Once that was accomplished, we found a “rent-a-wreck” car place and rented a nondescript sedan for in-town use, telling the man behind the counter our car was getting repaired. Finally, we’d stopped yet again to buy some clothes. Jennifer was probably getting sick of leaving our bags at every hotel we stayed at.

  After checking in, as we rode up in the elevator, Jennifer asked a question that apparently had been bouncing around in her head.

  “Are you sure you’re not a drug dealer or something? How come you know all about hiding from the authorities? I know you didn’t learn that stuff at basic training.”

  “I had to learn it for some other things we did. I’ve never had to do it as a real fugitive.”

  I could tell she didn’t buy that answer.

  “Sure. I bet. I can’t wait to get back to Charleston. You’re going to save me a bundle when you set up my free cable. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “I’m telling the truth. I’ll be running out of tricks soon, trust me.”

  The door opened on our floor. Jennifer exited, muttering, “I doubt that.”

  * * *

  Bakr and Sayyidd exited their plane in Oslo, Norway, exhausted from the trip. Given the seven-hour time difference from Belize, they landed at ten o’clock at night, almost twenty-four hours from the time they had left. Bakr had found them a small hotel on the outskirts of Oslo that catered to Muslim immigrants. Going through customs without issue, they flagged a cab and gave the driver an address.

  For security reasons, Bakr had them exit the cab three blocks from the hotel. While they walked, Sayyidd asked about Walid abdul-Aziz, and why on earth they were in this country. It didn’t make any sense to him. The place was frigid and full of blond-haired, blue-eyed infidels. It seemed the last place they should be.

  “Norway is one of the few countries in Europe that allows us to blend in without undue scrutiny from the authorities,” Bakr told him. “Believe it or not, it has a very large Muslim population. Larger than the people here realize, so there isn’t a backlash yet. God willing, we’ll own this country before they realize we’re here.”

  “What do you mean? Own the country?”

  “The faithful have been flooding into Europe for decades. We’re the minority now, but we’ll eventually outpace the native people. Sharia law has already been allowed in some countries. If we can’t win by fire, we might win by simple numbers.”

  “So, we’re safe here? The Ummah are all true believers?”

  Bakr scoffed, “No. No way. Most of the Muslims came here to escape their life at home. They were told about the free welfare and decided to join in. Don’t trust them just because they pray to Mecca. They’ll turn you in simply to prove they aren’t a threat.”

  Wearily unpacking their bags, Bakr checked to ensure the weapon was still intact in its duct-tape cocoon. Seeing no signs of a breach, he asked Sayyidd to set up the M4 satellite phone and check the e-mail account.

  Sayyidd demurred. “Let’s get some sleep first. The message will be waiting for us when we get up, and there’s nothing we can do with it right now anyway.”

  Bakr started to argue but didn’t have the energy. He was growing weary of his partnership with Sayyidd, wanting to be on his own again. He was unsure why his leadership had chosen Sayyidd for their original mission, but was becoming convinced it had been a mistake. A mistake that he would more than likely have to rectify. Crawling into bed, he turned out the lights.

  65

  Finished cleaning up, I gave Jennifer’s door a light knock. I sensed her looking through the peephole, then saw the door swing open. Jennifer was smiling, standing barefoot while finishing buttoning the top of her shirt, her hair wet and smelling of shampoo.

  “Hey, you’re early. Let me get my shoes.”

  She moved away from the door without waiting on a response, which was lucky
, because seeing her like that made me about as comfortable as a snail crossing salt flats. Don’t knock like this again. Call first.

  She came back to the door wearing a ball cap, her wet hair stuck through the hole in the back. The effect floored me. Heather had worn her hair the same way almost every weekend. Jesus. I can’t do this. I knew it wasn’t Jennifer’s fault, but the combined effect cut me to the quick. She noticed me stiffen and looked at me with concern.

  “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

  I had no idea why my brain had made that connection. Heather looked nothing like Jennifer. It was just a ball cap — a stupid connection that passed quickly, like the jolt you feel when a car starts crossing into your lane on the freeway, then swerves back.

  “Nothing. Let’s go. I did a recce of the north lobby and found the business center.”

  Eight minutes later we were sitting in the The Link, a pseudo- business center, pseudocafé, with me on one computer and Jennifer on another. I logged on to the Embassy Suites Web site in Old Town Alexandria and proceeded to get us a couple of rooms.

  I was finishing up the reservation, asking for adjoining rooms, when Jennifer whispered, “Pike. There’s another message. It’s in a different e-mail account. The first account’s empty. The message we printed in Belize is gone.”

  I closed out my system. “Print it out.”

  After she hit print I said, “Scoot over. Let me try something.”

  I got behind the keyboard and typed www.whatismyipaddress.com.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Well, we can’t read the message itself, but with a little luck, we can determine where it came from. All I have to do is get the full header of the e-mail and paste it into this Web site. It should have the originating IP address, which, if we’re lucky, is tied to an actual location. Sometimes it’s good to go, other times it doesn’t work, but it’s worth a shot.”

  I clicked “get source” and waited for the computer to quit churning. The screen loaded with an analysis of the message.